The Last Monster
by Danny Barefoot
Summary: The journey of a small boy. Principally interested in psychoviolence, manipulation, and milk. The Homunculus Wrath, postseries. CHPT11–SPOILER Wrath's last fight, and everything he wanted. NOW REMASTERED to read more clearly
1. Prologue

_A/N: This fanfiction is animeverse, and one of the many animeverses I do not own and cannot profit from as well. Most of the surviving cast and several OC's should be appearing. The final glimpse of Wrath in the Anime in curled up under a tree next to an empty milk churn. Please read and review, but enjoy above all;_

* * *

_Listen.__There's __this __joke._

_Man walks into a sweetshop. Asks for a chocolate bar that'll tell him why he's alive._

"_What __about __this __one, __Sir?"__Says t__he __shopkeeper __"Got __the __meaning __of __life __written __in __every __third __wrapper."_

"_Then __I'll __have __three __JAWS __bars__…__bet __they __cost __an __arm __and __a __leg?"_

"_Yes, Sir. Each."_

–0–

When I drank milk the first time, I felt full, I felt safe, and everything else I'd never felt. A hundred caring fingers touched my mouth, as I poured it in. I remembered every warm thing that had happened to me, and maybe a dozen that never had.

–0–

The next morning, I was pulling another milk churn off the cart when a stone knocked my head. I was very still, as a blonde kid ran up from the farm gate holding another rock. I looked through his eyes and didn't let go of the churn.

"Twas tha yesterday, an' all. Thee's a thief."

"You had the fun of hitting my head. Equivalent exchange–right?"

"Wha'? Thieving ain't right–ain't no kind of fun–"

"Then something made you hit me? I can truly understand that." My lips were peeling back without my will, towards a homunculus' grin. I didn't want to kill anyone else, or hit this thick, innocent kid, but it seemed it was what I would do. I had a cursed body–every part _except_ the Automail.

"Oy, easy there, Tam. Good lad." The milkman had come back from his round at the farm; he was putting a hand on his son's shoulder, peering at my hair and pale skin "Tha an Artegian, boy? Put tha churn back, now. Thee can have a cup of milk, and then we'll both be on our ways."

My way. My path of blood rage and endless death, with nothing of home at the end. Nothing like the _thoughtless_ touch of assurance this fat man laid beside his brat's gormless head. A touch like Mummy's, that brought all the anger back from before–

–0–

Five minutes later, I burst into a copse, fell down in the leaf-litter and wrenched the lid off the churn between my knees.

When I drank milk the second time, the taste was as good as the first. I could've labored for a glass a day and food, my physical needs were so small.

But I hit that blonde kid instead–not killing hard, but hard. The worse he was, the more his Papa would fuss over him, and rage at the brutal monster–like no one in the world would ever do for me again. Even if I drank milk every day, or found something a hundred times better, I could never even have a Mummy if I lived forever. I was lost.

After my first drink of milk, I lay in the musky-smelling darkness, knees on my chin. I could remember kindness, and forget what I was. I've had better times, but only a few.

After my second drink of milk, I thought about going home, or somewhere. Then I walked out, rubbing my eyes.

It was morning. I was still a wretch of a monster. But before the end, I had some things left to try.


	2. Ghosts

"You haven't cleaned you Automail since you left! Then, with _my_ Automail, you hit some innocent boy…you IDIOT!"

"Didn't hit him that hard–"

"And you stink as well!" Winry's fingers twitched around her wrench, the way I'd got to know and dread while my Automail got fitted.

"Brought you some rabbits." I revealed the peace offering behind my back, "I was going to play with them, but I remembered what Ed said about playing. So I just found some and–" I twiddled a rabbit's neck around, as Winry went slightly pale.

"It means a lot to hear some respect for Ed, Wrath. Now–the shower tank's full."

She had to help me claw the dirt from my mat of hair. Then she pushed me down onto the sofa and starting sticking a micro-brush into my arm. "You can't keep popping in and out like a cat. Where've you been _sleeping_ this last week?" She muttered.

"Anywhere. Slept in a tree with a bird's nest once, and little chicks. They were crying." the hand on my shoulder went stiff. "Then the Mummy bird came, and screamed at me; I wanted to squash her, but I was really scared. When I jumped out the tree–the chicks stopped crying."

Winry sighed and slipped her arms round my chest; I tried rolling over towards her on instinct.

"Wrath…you need a home." She mumbled into my hair, "Couldn't you go to an orphanage near Dublith…? Al would be happy…"

Al, the rosy-faced little good boy playing house with his Sensei–the pointless, idiot life that should've been mine.

"Mrs Curtis would be sad, and I don't want that…but if you _could_ stay here…" I shouldered Winry off.

"You're right, I can't." She went back to cleaning my arm, "Did you ever hug Ed like that?" I saw from her face I'd said something she didn't like.

"I wasn't sure about you being soulless for a while–I mean, who can see one? But you're not human, are you? You've got feelings but they're all _wrong_." I suddenly rose; Winry shoved me back, "I'm finishing this if I have to kill you!"

I relaxed; of course she would. The broken circuit of blows, hair-tugging, and embraces that were so easy, because all her love was meant for a different amputee. I'd almost taken something of Ed's for myself, again…but that was the past, and this was too late to enjoy.

That's why I was never grateful for all the stuff Winry did for me. I know I can hardly talk about expending a troubled love on a pale substitute.

"Remember the train time for Central?." Winry looked up, slight fear in her eyes, "I think I've got a new game."

–0–

"Oy! Mustang!"

The man with one eye took his hand away from the blonde lady in white. Glanced through the crowd in the market, hunched against the rain.

He saw a grinning eleven-year old, the color of the moon's backside. Freshly bought combats and vest, dark hair thick as a carpet down to his waist. Teeth like a rat, and the Automail arm and leg that was the reason for Mustang looking like he'd seen a ghost. Exactly like; first hope, a wash of guilt, finally solid frustration. I gave a little hop that showed the soles of my feet–the lady reached under her jacket;

"Easy, lieutenant. Miss Rockbell wouldn't have made that creature Automail, if it were still an enemy." He stared me out, "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I want to see Ed's reports–all the places on his journey. If you need a soldier you can shoot in the head–?"

I never saw his hand move. I don't have to breathe, or anything, but it's much more comfortable.

"Do you know anything on the present location of the Fullmetal Alchemist?" I managed to shake my head, "Then forget the Stone, now. No one and nothing will seek it, that I have power to check." Mustang released the chokehold, and stepped back towards a car ("Colonel, that was too reckless…"). As they got in and pulled away, I ran after them, slipping in puddles.

The pavement was full of humans. As a blue van pulled out in front of the car and made it brake, I vaulted over the boot, and ran between traffic to the driver's door.

"Mustang! I don't–"

Before I was shot, everything got sickeningly clear. I saw Mustang pulling the blonde lieutenant back and down, heard her cry out, saw him throw himself over the seats with that terrible face. He tried to knock me down by throwing the door open, but I hopped back–so I was still on my feet when, like I just mentioned, three bullets punched through my back.

I came round to see a flat-bed truck screeching away, a gunman with brains splattered from his head hanging over the back. I got up as someone kicked open the door on the other side of the car, causing a burst of fire, and renewed screaming. I jumped on top of the car; as more bullets flew around me, and I dropped down, I saw the blue van's driver drop his gun, and fall in a spray of blood.

Then it was over The pavement was cleared, except for the oil-carbide stink, and a couple of wailing shoppers with bullets in them. The blonde lady, her side blossoming red, limped around the car to the surviving gunman, her pistol held out. He was an Eastern guy, maybe eighteen, and he stared up at her.

"W-w-why…?"

"Mustang killed the savior of the country. You shot its best officer in the back–"

"Bradley gave us Ishbal and Liore, he choked his own son–we saw it; me and him! You don't know what the Colonel _gave_–!" Her voice rose to a scream

"You betrayed us all to the mire, whore. And don't think we'll be the last–"

The lady shot him in the head. There was a pause, while she determined whether she felt better now, then she fired again. Her face was scariest when she was reloading, as if every moment she wasn't tearing that guy apart was an agony.

I watched what I was, all the way through. It scared me–but there are so few things in a Homunculus' life that feel _right_.

Before she actually reloaded, Mustang struggled out of the car and stopped her, holding his bare hand over her wound. She collapsed onto his side in a reckless way that made me think of Winry, and the weird feelings I got when she touched me because she wanted to.

"Shh. It's okay, lieutenant…it wasn't your best jacket, either." Sirens were coming. I decided to get my business over.

"Why'd you try knocking me out the way with that door, Colonel? You, of all people, should know I can't die just yet." He looked up, and it was wonderful, he understood what I wanted! "It a human thing, isn't it?"

Mustang turned his haunted eyes to the dead man.

"_That_ human didn't understand it." He looked back at the blonde lady, "Come back tomorrow, kid."

–0–

Private Sheska stared at me curiously after I dropped Mustang's clearance on her desk. "Didn't you have a huge burn, last time I saw you?"

"I got over it. Maybe your friend won't be so lucky, if he doesn't _stop__that__now_."

The small, spectacled sergeant on the next desk jumped, and took his hand away from his sidearm.

"S-sorry…I heard about the thing with the Colonel, but you're still a…you know….look, what exactly do you mean to do? How are you going to live?"

"I don't eat much, I don't need a roof, I can work, and I can walk across the whole country in…one week."

"Have you got a map?" Sheska muttered. I sighed. "Oh! I just thought; we got a huge parcel the other day. It had our address, but a letter to forward to...yes, Wrath Curtis."

"Don't know him."

Sheska was about to say something, but then she possibly noticed my hands, or heard my teeth.

"_Don't__know__him._"

"Ah…ah…silly me! It's…actually unclaimed after three days, so...we can give it to you for a song, anyway! I'll just get it…"

I stared evenly at a small red machine with a seat, handles and two wheels. I threw a leg over it. Raised both feet, and fell straight over.

"Now, could you take it outside…"

I was angry with the bike, I hated for the Dublith postmark on its wrappings. So I would make it do what I wanted.

Ten minutes later, I was swinging the bike between the desks, hair swooshing over all their paper and scattering it about. As some more soldiers came to throw me out, I drove right down the stair, bumping all over, and laughing.

–0–

A week later, there was one more thing to do.

I cycled round the Central Old Quarter, till I found a ruin, with walls. Tripping over scorched beams, I found the remains of Pride's lift. Ed had Alchemically filled the shaft below with stone–I knocked on the floor once, and squatted down in the rain, as light fled.

"_Our__souls__make__us__human__beings__not__our__bodies.__And__that's__something__you'll__never__have!"_

Maybe folk with happy little lives worry less about 'why?' than I do. Things used to be simple; my purpose was to take Ed's body, Ed's purpose was to give it to me. The purpose of everyone else…

I turned, with a loose, miserable grin, to the chomping noise behind me. That great, white, bald head pushed through the rock, and sniffed.

"Hey, fatty. I'm sorry…"

I leapt back onto the house's wall, as Gluttony's bulk crashed out at me, with a mindless screech.

"I killed Lust! Your Mummy! I had to, but I know I was jealous of you, even before I killed Sloth, too…"

White eyes, mad as a shark. I saw it as I spoke; he didn't even know he had the right to kill me. Add teeth, and doesn't that mindlessness make a monster? I threw one of my boots across the ruin–as Gluttony flopped onto that, I dived down the lift-shaft. I hit rock, scrabbled desperately about, and crawled down the side tunnel Gluttony had eaten out, tears on my face.

I lay in Dante's underground ballroom, two hours later, burning enough Stones to carry me out. I'd left enough clothes and torn hair all over the place to keep Gluttony mindlessly rooting about for months. After that, he might have grown too huge to climb out and trouble any innocent humans.

I'd crawled in the same place, stripped of my alchemy and my limbs, and seen that Edward Elric had died. My purpose…was to become something dead.

Then Alphonse did it. The boy I would've killed without thought to bring Sloth back; he protected his brother like I'd never be able to protect her. Because I can't ever _choose_ to fulfil the purpose of life–the purpose of life is to end. And what end?

I still wanted a human soul. But my hope right then was in human feelings and thoughts–thank you Winry–not a human body. And if I was human, I wouldn't be the baby crying in the Gate–I'd be the real boy that whore-bitch-demon of a Mummy wanted.

I listened for a moment to Gluttony's far off roars. Then I ran out of that place on the feet I had.


	3. make and break

Next day, I met Winry at the station–she'd insisted we go together as far as Rush Valley. She smiled as I loaded the bike onto the train, freshly painted black;

"You'll need a bike lock as well–"

"Got some money helping on building sites."

"I'm sure you were good at that." Winry peered at my notebook. " Ed wrote about a guy called Bald? Wasn't he–?"

"Yeah, terrorist with an Automail arm. Hijacked some train, Ed beat him up, happy ending."

"Oh. Well, there shouldn't be anyone dangerous on this train. Except you, of course!" I realized she wanted me to laugh as well.

Winry presently fell asleep in her seat. Some hours later, an oldish man in a checked shirt sat down and touched my ankle. I gave him a very honest stare, and he presently went away.

At Rush Valley station, Winry ran to hug a brown girl with three pieces of Automail, who she introduced as Paninya.

She looked self-contained, like she didn't need anyone. Certainly not me. Tagging along through the streets, I realized that there was nothing special in Rush Valley about the Automail that signified my forgiveness. I was still special, but only as a Homunculus.

"Wrath, don't you want to do something?" Winry asked, hours more after we'd reached a rickety workshop. I grunted back, lying on a workbench. "Any books around here, Paninya?"

"Go on." I couldn't help saying, "Something about souls, and the lack of 'em, where a couple of bits get cut off."

"You might just be in luck." Paninya threw a tiny book into my lap. It was _The Little Mermaid_. "Been lying around for years; take it for free." Winry, who knew Paninya reading tastes, did try to stop herself giggling.

–0–

Who knows where Izumi Curtis got that bike. Strong enough to carry Automail, mountain suspension, child-size. After bedtime, I rode it to the pawnshop, and then walked down alleys till I found the address Ed had liked to Bald in his report. A largish blockhouse, door like a bank vault. I knocked, a hatch shot open.

"Recommendation?"

"Johann Bald of the ELF. Sends his regards."

Entry was half the cash from the pawnshop. I picked out toned and jagged shapes in the darkness; men and women clustered round a floodlit circle. Almost all the Automail looked like something off a metal Cathedral, or a spiny metal insect. Clothing was taunt leather briefer than my usual outfit. No cheering, just a kind of focused hum, tense as a wire. I smelt a lot of blood.

A girl with a flesh hand on her metal arm checked my Automail for weapons. "You were in the war?" I asked.

"Before my time, kid. Can't beat a Warm hand for some things–" She chuckled, "–but my Warm arm, I got replaced. Huh, where you raised? Guy wants a Cool limb, he doesn't wait for the warm one to drop off."

"I see this is the right place for me. I don't care if most humans would call me a nutcase either."

I asked at the bar for milk. Then I stared at the barkeep until he stopped laughed and poured something brown with bubbles that tasted of heaven.

A brown man with spikes on his biceps leaned in; "Any bets?"

"Half a mo." The white light was on a shaft, with mattresses lashed over walls and floor. Two guys with Automail arms, staring and waiting. "Thin guy. He's got a look."

Twenty minutes later the heavier fighter was down; steel plates peeking out of his bloodied flesh, and I had enough money to get my bike back.

–0–

A single roar, as someone leapt half-way up the pit and crashed down on their enemy's h–I kept betting, kept watching.

I was tender inside. When you fight with anger, losing hurts–and I'd really lost every last time. I shrank from the pain, from a life of being passed between girls like a grass doll.

In the pit, a Xingian scissor-kicked his opponent's arms aside, threw his whole body upright off one arm, and _punched._ This was my world, my jungle, and I hardly knew how it worked. And it was hard to tell from watching when I had no one to teach me, not really.

"How do I get to fight?" The Auto-mail check woman threw her head back and laughed.

"Kid, you ain't got the size, the skills, or the brains, and that Automail–"

"Yeah, ha, Bald said something like that. Before I arrested him."

I barely caught her fist, then kicked at her stomach, hopping back onto the bar. A dozen Automail guns rose–they could hardly leave them at the door–as I brought my hands into the clap-transmutation pose.

"You're the–the FULLMETAL–"

"Even he. But you can guarantee my silence on this highly illegal establishment, with one round in the pit. No Alchemy"

Bicep-spikes slowly nodded. I was in, _and_ nobody intended I leave alive. Mission accomplished.

–0–

The Thin Guy, know to his friends as Thresher, had one Automail arm, two legs. Cropped hair, Eastern face, dog tags. I punched air a bit, to avoid meeting his eyes.

"Ready…" I was still, and stared through him, "FIGHT!"

Alright, superhuman reflexes, but where was I dodging _to_? Feet scything about me, I jumped, dropped past his temple–slammed into the floor. The wall; knee in my belly, hands on my jaw.

Maybe my neck got broke somewhere, but I kicked and clawed him off without going limp. It seemed slow. Even when I clipped him, the impacts blurred.

He threw me down yet again, dropped his knee–I rolled, and stopped. Followed a hollow metal spike from my guts to Thin Guy's elbow.

Thing's flickered, but I never even saw the Gate, I felt light. As if someone was holding me.

I forced myself up. Thin Guy retracted his arm-spike, and smiled happily.

"Cheer up, boy. I'd call you a fighter, if you could actually fight."

"You would?" I grinned. He struck at my chest, but I was above him, "THE BEST–"

Struck down at his head–he threw my leg away, I leapt at him;

"–FIGHTER IN THE–"

The spike shot out again, bit through my shoulder. I punched Thin Guy, I kept punching.

"–WHOLE WORLD–"

Thin guy finally dropped. I brought my hand into his neck, my knee into his chin.

"–_is Mummy_."

–0–

I looked up from the pit. The club seemed empty. My brain pieced together a shrill cry of 'Police!' five minutes ago, a sound like a wall being blown in, and, yes, the marks of a couple of shots into the pit, how dumb–

The last bullet crashed above my head. I spun round. A black kid, with dealocks and eyes that knew too much was sat on the edgeoff the pit. With a gun for a hand and a transmutation circle on the barrel.

"Hmm. Critical wound recovery. Reaction to shots. Human appearance. Possibilities include–"

I took a run, and crashed into him. With a flash, the gun sprouted blades, but I grabbed that with my Automail–

–which had come away from my shoulder.

With my strength, I had a few seconds–I won't ever forget how the kid still looked so damn _quizzical_.

Then Paninya hit him on the neck, laying him out.

"Now, unless you'd prefer the _real_ police–"

Winry was kneeling in the empty club, looking down at the dead body. I walked up, studying my detached arm.

"Don't look surprised. I mean, you knew what I was, so you stuck this neat little catch here. You or anyone else observant, as we just saw, could _knock my arm off if I ever tried_–"

"Only to stop you hurting anyone. Even without an arm, you can't die."

I stood over her. "Just tell me why you made this! Why you ever took me in, if you knew–"

Then Paninya was between us. She was crying, I guess she looked beautiful, and I hit her as hard as I could. I clapped my arm back on, dropping to my knees, but not feeling pain in my head. Then I ran. I was going to get a bike and a book, then I was going.

–0–

Johann Bald. Without one arm, one eye. Automail crushed by Ed, laid out by Al, flame-grilled by Mustang. Hanging yourself in jail. Living for an ideal you never understood and no one remembers. You and me both.


	4. Biting his tail

The man showed nothing but pain as he fell down with a broken wrist–nothing that made him special. I picked his revolver up, and kept punching his face after there was nothing left. I was angry with more than his face, you understand.

There was one noise in the ruined hallway, after I stopped. My eyes shivered over the lady I'd had to knock out, to the brown faced kid, pulling on her hair and crying.

"Stop…please…"

I took a step towards it–I didn't want to hurt the kid, so I jumped through the window. Stumbling up, running with gasps like sobbing, I hoped the third name would live alone, like terrorists should.

Lights on. It was last on the list, so I just kicked through the door. As I raced up the stairs, the back door slammed; I leapt back down. A soldier shouted at me in the street; fired at air as I dived into an alley after the running name three.

He lost me quickly–I scrabbled onto a roof, and searched the streets with my cat's-eyes. There he was, jogging along clutching a bundle. I hopped two roofs slowly; then dropped down at a burst of gunfire pattering above my head. I'd hoped the soldier would be slowed down by what I was wearing, but apparently there were going to ask questions later.

Name Three ran, finally diving into an old storehouse. As I dropped to the street, another soldier appeared, aiming–on impulse, I pulled out the revolver from the house before and fired. He ducked back; the kick went up my arm like I'd punched him.

I ran into the building, kicking at doors, stopping to force a broken lock, just as I started thinking about the bundle, and the whole place blew up.

I rolled, and I rang all over. Stumbled forward into the dust, and falling bricks–a beam fell over my shoulders, pinned me.

I could only regenerate fast; get out before I got buried. Maybe the soldiers would be around for me to take out some frustration...

* * *

Two weeks before, I'd been juddering in the back of a lorry, bike over my knees. As the Ishbalan desert changed to buildings like broken rows of teeth, I peeled sweaty hair off my eyes.

As a dozen Ishbalans arrived to offload timber, I jumped out the lorry. "Help you with that?" No answer.

A little girl started crying as I cycled by–I stopped, but her Mummy shut her up, and I rode on. Nothing else but muttering.

Top of that scaffold. A puppy-like kid and his thin, spiky big brother.

"Leo? Rick?" They stared at me, "Friends of Winry Rockbell and the Elric brothers?"

Double finger-point and gasp; "Yeah! I mean, any news–?"

"Talk later," I extended my hand, "Help you with that?"

"We ain't got money." Rick turned away, but I stayed where I was, "Look, friend, we're building our homes; ourselves."

"Automail," A lady carrying water whispered to Rick, "A blasphemous image–"

"Yes, ma'am, I can remember." He answered louder than he might've, "Can _you_ remember the Rockbell doctors, and how much they gave for us?"

I scrambled up the wall, about then, and grabbed a brick. No one complained.

The work was real slow–everyone continually stopped for water, or when something ran out, or to watch a flatbed of returning Ishbalans going past like a victory parade of dust. Not one complained–building their homes again was work they almost wanted to draw out, and savour. Personally, I almost used up a whole resurrection to stop my skin boiling away in the sun, but it was kinda satisfying to make something.

–0–

When the night got too cold to work, everyone gathered in the most finished house. There was a fire, and wailing songs–some Ishbalans even pulled in a few stranded Armestrisian truckers, and let them pass brandy between themselves.

Leo beamed through tears. "Mum must be happy. Still wish she was here, though."

"Your Mummy's…back in Armestris?" I guessed. Leo smiled some more, and told me about his Mummy. How she'd always looked after them, even when she found them on the street, without family, and got nearly too ill to see. How she'd been looking for them in their old house, when it had fallen and buried her. And how she was waiting in the gardens of Paradise, with open arms.

"That's…a nice story. Wish my Mummy was Ishbalan, really."

Leo's Grandpa laughed. "As the Chosen People have their troubles, child, those who cannot know Ishbala have a hard path. But, in time, the scriptures say, he will gather all souls to his bosom…"

I looked awkwardly around, lingering on a brown-eyed man in an untypical cut of nightdress and a blocky hat. Guess like calls like–even when he laughed I could hear the steel.

"Him?" Rick sniffed, "Yehdrian Elder–they're a tribe who live to the south. He looks unhappy that we're back; bastards would've moved onto our homeland in another decade."

"Weren't they our friends in the rebellion?" Leo chipped in.

"Couldn't have been from the call of God." Another kid retorted. "They probably say _we_ dragged them in"

"If we did," Leo murmured. "They ought to _hate_ us."

"So your mother," I interrupted. "Gave her life for you? In a war, that must–"

"We weren't even in the house." Rick muttered.

"So you couldn't be with her, and it was for nothing. That's really sad…hey, what's that look for?"

"Just stop talking about our mother, friend. And don't talk about giving your life as if you know what that means." I looked away, trying to resist snapping his neck, and spoiling the evening.

–0–

"Ishbal. First we destroy it, then we build it up." At the Armestrian military outpost, Private Marisa was lying back with her jacket off, "Like whathisname pushing that rock up the hill forever–"

"For his sins."

"Phil, I cannot say _one bloody word _without you–ah, kid, forget I said all that. Where you from anyway–Drachma?"

"No country. No people. No family." I answered plainly.

"So that's how you're here. God, why didn't we end up somewhere cooler."

Day thirteen in Ishbal. The oupost back then, was just tents with tables and bunkbed in the open air. A track for lorries ran past. Private Phil was trying to dissemble his rifle blindfold–I was leaning on the table as a Sergeant filled out a report on it. A bomb had destroyed a few half-built Ishbalan houses; since none of them were speaking to the Military, I'd cycled over myself.

"Got anything to read, kid? Nothing here but Phil's _Playboy_ collection;even I've started reading them."

"Got one book–read it all the way here, so you can have it. Is _Playboy_ about playing with–?" A boot whistled by my head.

"Next one gets aimed." She settled back. The idea burst in my head that she cared about me.

"Thanks for your news, kid" The Sergeant interrupted, "We better start searching traffic."

"You gonna find out who set the bomb?"

"Find _some_ guilty fools. You be safe, boy!" She waved me out of sight.

–0–

Next morning, everyone listened to some Ishbalan with a thick moustache talk about the cycle of violence and things not being so bad. People were still asking me if the military were sending more troops here–not with a hopeful manner either.

"Dunno. What's everyone gonna do? Who'd you think set the bomb?" Even the kids didn't answer–just stared at nothing like humans do when they you're part of their humanity anymore.

Afterward, Moustache man went off talking with some guys–the Yehdrian elder was there, saying how sorry he was, in a voice like Envy used when he was about to beat me unconscious. I heard him go on about how they were occupying an unstable reigion, only made more unstable by Ishbalan taking land and stiiring up trouble.

I wandered off, beside a ditch. I'd learnt sawing and digging, and humans had smiled at it. Then the world told Ishbal that it still wasn't wanted. If any of them looked at me after that, it was like I'd already done something wrong. I _was_ the rest of the world–_and_ a soulless doll, whose mind would fall screaming into the Gate when his Stones burnt up. When humans condemned each other for their eyes, what chance did I have? Al had died for his brother, but was I supposed to die for human who hated

In the evening, I sat on a wall, watching the funerals. I'd run to the bomb site and seen the woman who'd thought Automail showed my sin. There were two little girls hiding silent tears with their shawls; their grandparents–her Mum and Dad–with trembling hands on their shoulders.

"Mothers are amazing," Leo sniffed, "Mother…" Rick brought him back with a gentle slap, before he remembered more than was good for me.

"We better get back, make Grandpa some tea." They walked, two lonely kids.

Mummies. The brand on my foot, the circle of grief. I loped after Rick.

"You ever hate your mummy?"

"Shut up."

"I think I hate her. Any mummy that can't look after her kids ought–" Leo gasped, as Rick slammed me into the wall.

"You sick bastard, if she could've stayed...never talk about mothers again, 'cos ours loved us. no matter what she did or couldn't do, she loved us! Don't you dare hate her…"

"You want me to _tell_ you about my Mummy?"

"Is she alive?" Rick punched me onto the floor. "She is! You go back to her, right now!"

I pushed him away and ran.

–0–

I ended up back at the Military centre. Private Marisa waited five minutes till I could talk–within seven we were listing every fault of the Ishbalan people with grinning faces. I got confused thinking of Private Marisa dying, and having no one to hate in a couple of years when the woman who made me coughed her lungs up. I might've been happy, otherwise, seeing how every family of humans suffers like me in the end.

Ed told me not to be so impulsive once. I didn't know who to kill to make things better, so I though for some time before Marisa fell alseep and I stole her jacket.

That evening, in the white desert between Yehdria and Ishbal, the Yehdrian Elder stopped at a half-buried body, in Armestrisian Military uniform. He dropped from his horse, gun drawn.

Reckon he was in the war too–dodged my kick and sunk his elbow in my side, as I grabbed his weapon. He shot my knee. Emptied his gun after it started growing back. I came back just in time to tackle him before he got to his horse. Too many deaths and I'd stop come back; but I owed the Ishbalans something.

"Right, Pops. You look sensible; probably stay informed about most affairs in this spot of desert. Names and addresses."

Didn't talk. I was briefly stuck. "You know most Armestrians would feel worse right now for an Ishbalan stubbed toe, than your whole city getting scrubbed out?" I'd no idea about all that, but it takes bullshit to get through to a shithead sometimes. "Names, addresses, descriptions. Or tell me the guys who make trouble–probably just stupid, angry kids. Give me any names, or I'll just head to your city and kill the first dozen people I meet."

He was _nearly_ crying, "The bomb–it was Armesterisian militants–" I pushed a metal finger between his teeth, forced his face in the sand.

"_Who's_ talking about that bomb? Any troublesome names at all–" I let him up to cough out sand and talk.

Starting the Ishbalan cycle of death again would've been so easy. But I just didn't feel like settling to a steady job right now.

* * *

After killing the people in Yehdria who might've set the bomb in Ishbal, I threw the jacket in a ditch near the Armestrian outpost and stumbled back to the Ishbal encampment by next afternoon. I ran into Leo and Rick, next to my bike.

"You did this. We took you in; you'll be seen as one of us!"

"Am I? I doubt somehow–"

"You bastard, they want to blame us! They want an excuse."

"Brother…" Leo whispered, "They aren't saying it was Ishbalans who killed those people. They say…it was a State Alchemist. Trying to start another war; like they did with us and the Liorians"

I disengaged Rick's grip on my shirt. "Ishbal and Yhedria are going to be friends. Both of them are going to hate Armesteris from now on, which an informed source tell me is now run by stuffed suits, who'll let anyone walk over them, except their own militants. So if it was Armestrians like who let off that bomb in the first place, they won't get away."

Leo's mouth opened and shut, "You don't know…you killed–?"

"Some bad people, as it turned out. If they didn't attack you, I'd say they were planning it. But everyone in that city enjoyed your pain; the Military didn't care either–aren't feelings more than actions? Everyone's punished, everything's peaceful. Not bad for a sick bastard."

"Yeah…but not _good_ either."

"You don't care about helping us, really. You just want to play with thousands of lives."

I stared at them, "You help yourselves then–_properly_." I walked away, dropping the revolver in my saddlebag. I tested my Automail hand–a lucky bullet as I ran from the last few soldiers in Yhedria had stopped it opening properly. Winry would be so–no, I couldn't take it to Winry now, ever. Leo ran after me as I was mounting my bike.

"I know you don't…but the Book says, even when people hurt you, you can sleep. But if you hurt other people, you can never sleep at all." There was fear in his eyes, and hope–much more than anybody just about to die.

"I guess that why I keep killing. You guys must have something in you head, that says there's another way. But if I stopped fighting what makes me angry, I wouldn't be alive. I'd sleep and never wake up from the nightmare."


	5. Circle of life and death

She didn't look dangerous. Or unusual, or very much of anything, tapping her painfully slow path through the downpour. I watched her feel her way out of the post office, as rain ran into my eyes. A hunched, staggering figure in a raincoat collided with her, both of them almost falling. He went four more steps, then picked up a stone.

"Oy! You got a reason for that?" The figure jumped–under his hood, he was hairy and red faced–and dropped the stone. "No. Really. Interested."

"Uh…sorry, mate, all this rain, dunno what–"

"Oh. Not a _good_ reason then." The blind woman stopped, and laughed like an ancient bird. "Freaky thing to laugh at, granny." The drunk scarpered.

"Your voice is unfamiliar, child." She her voice was mushy from no teeth, but she didn't look stupid.

"I ain't from this dump. Okay, I guess I'm a tramp. Wheel fell off my bike, and I've been waiting hours for a repair shop to open."

"You'll have some time to wait until another scrap dealer comes to this town. And, as you mentioned, we're some way from anywhere–a long way, by bicycle." I said nothing, as she moved closer, "Nothing to say, sonny? Well?"

"Nothing to say, granny."

"Well. If there's nothing you _think_–" She suddenly doubled up like a folding ruler, and would've fallen if I'd been slower. As she stopped shaking, I saw that she was a Southerner, from her skin–and felt that she was more bone than flesh. She scratched about with her cane under the eave of that shop. Before I'd caught on, a raincoat had materialised in the dirt, and she was slowly tapping away, without a word. I left the coat, and ran after her.

"You're an Alchemist." An impatient noise, "We ain't even."

"Want a certificate of gratitude?"

"Dunno what I'd want from a crotchety old–" The cane poked my leg–the flesh one, too.

"It couldn't be even more cussedness than you've got."

"I knew it! An alchemist and a bloody ninja!" She laughed. My leg got poked again as I tried to leave quietly. So I followed her, trying out the sound of 'cussedness' in my mouth.

* * *

"Witch boy, witch's boy…"

I stuck up a finger at the whispers behind me, but kept walking. I really would've enjoyed beating a couple of kids to mush, but it would've mean moving on.

"Nice to see you've had a bath today." The girl at the shop counter commented, without looking up from her ten-year old comic. I peeked over the cover, as I pulled food off the shelves.

"Funny. I thought humans messed their pants when they got shot."

"Whoa."

I dawdled on the way back, shadow kick-boxing, and beating up trees. The drunk I'd last week when I arrived–too poor a town for two drunks–muttered loudly from his bench what a good kid I was.

"Stuff it, old man. I get her shopping; she gives me a floor to sleep on till I feel like moving. I'd live like a dog, like you, but they'd haul _me_ off to a fucking orphanage."

"Wou…wouldn't mind getting hauled off so much, lad. Maybe." He took another swig for his bottle.

"Tell me about the old woman." I squatted down beside him.

"Uhhh. Some kinda witch, spent a long time in far-off parts. Keeps to hersel'. Had a son, ages ago, 'fore they went off who knows where, and only her came back. Uhh. Wherever _you're _from, anyways, kid, somebody raised you good…"

I gently shoved the old man off the bench, and left him groaning on his side, like an overturned beetle.

* * *

"…Miss Hawkeye was unavailable for comment, but is apparently recovering. Following the second assassination attempt in two months against ex-general Mustang and his associates, that person has departed for a posting unknown even to his closest friends."

"Hmmph. Shows what he's made of now." I lay on the hearthrug, and pretended to search the rest of the newspaper I was reading to the old woman. She was a soft shadow in her armchair.

"You been to Central?"

"Someone told you about my travels? Hah, for these folk, two towns on is a foreign country."

"You only went away once?"

"Nothing to see these days. Except for assassinations."

"Not to find your son?" She seized up all over for a minute, "I hate it when you do that."

"I...ack…don't imagine he needs anything more from an old baggage, stuck in this pokey town."

"Is he an Alchemist too?"

"You seem quite interested; sonny."

"I learnt a bit. Forgot it all."

"Dear me. I would relearn you–if you could use it."

In the silence, Granny tapped the tank above the fireplace, transmuting smoke and ashes–the reborn firewood spat, almost carefully

"Does the foot with the mark sound heavier?"

"The smell, child–we humans tend to excrete on occasions. Do calm down. It seems both of us have our little secrets."

"Yeah…but, you're okay with what I am?"

"I've always said, sonny–people shouldn't be anything, but what they are."

Right then, I might've killed her for what she wasn't. Or done something I'd no idea how to do, and still don't understand. But she was glancing at the clock, and picking her agonising way to the door. Going to the post office, where I daren't follow. Shaking, but treading down hard. There was no letter.

* * *

Some nights, I crept out the ground floor window. Climbed up on roofs, and tried to remember what I was looking for.

Lior had still been a ruin. The Tringhams might have vanished after Edward; lab 5 was still off-limits. The Elrics had poked around some places in the South…along with the old woman's stories of Mesas and walled cities, I felt like that might be the right place to go after I left. Left Granny here–it wasn't nice to think about that.

How was it a sacrifice? Staying with someone who could do everything by herself, except read and love? Her son been inhuman; untrue to what he was. _Like you_, Dante murmured in my head, and a baby started crying in the house beneath me.

I dropped from the roof and walked to the window, slowly. The crying faded–came back, louder…

A clapping noise–as I turned, I kicked out. The helmet bounced off a shop door; then my leg was grasped and held above me.

I swung for it, with a hollow booming, till the other hand found me, and pushed me away. I'd pulled off two of its fingers, before I saw him, leaning against a wall

"That's–a really fine coat you got, Elric. Just come a bit closer, mebbe shake hands–"

"You just might come off worse," Alphonse showed the palm of his glove and grinned.

* * *

"–So I tied my soul–I can do that now–to some armour I transmuted from a rock. Just for old times sake. You weren't going to shout at them were you? The family with the crying baby?

By noon next day Alphonse had fixed every broken vase in town, had a meal laid on by the whole village, except for granny, and made that shop girl go utterly coo-coo over him. If he'd ever heard what I'd done when Rose had held a baby that screamed and I'd held a spear, he'd forgotten it. He given his life for his brother, inspired me to be something more than a monster, and forgotten everything.

"I was heading to Ishbal; horrid business over there. But there was a rumour that Brother was involved, so, well, I…"

We were sat in front of the disused store. I spoke carefully.

"Been there–nothing to see." I leaned over, "Could be a clue in those memories you lost. Might've told you himself, where he was going to vanish to."

"I guess I could retrace our journey, someday–but I really think I can bring him back by finding something new. You wouldn't still want a fight if he came back, would you?"

"Maybe just tear his Automail off–for old times' sake." After a second, I grinned, and Alphonse laughed like he had a right to.

"Go on, tell me everywhere you've been–Winry's _distraught_ about you, even if you were awful to her."

"Should've been a lot more awful."

"And I should've bounced your head off the ground a few times. But I won't hit the catch to knock your arm off, even if we fight for real."

I told Al stuff. He said that Granny sounded a wonderful person–and she was, but loads of other stuff as well he just didn't see.

(I think he saw me like that; whatever he'd been told of what I was and what I'd done. To him, I was just Mr Grumpy with a weird foot.)

"Actually, I got a phone call from Sergeant Fury yesterday–the whole Eastern region's been declared unsafe for travel again. There was another terrorist attack–something like an animal, but even a Chimera would make more mess. The military wants to secretly investigate, so I thought I'd follow up another rumour, in North city. You're welcome to come along–"

"Dunno."

"Sensei's well." I glanced up, "Sorry; no worse. She doesn't talk about you; but she doesn't talk so much. She'd love even a visit–?"

I reached back to the saddlebag of my bike, eyes biting at his like razors. Al's hands came off his lap.

"You're Alphonse Elric. Don't talk about my Mummy like that."

"What's in the bag?" I showed him the revolver from Ishbal, "Goodness! When did you find time to read _Wild East_ comics?"

"Yeah, you guessed. 'Course, I might need it, without Alchemy tricks."

"I'd say you're nearly as impulsive as Brother. And take even less care of your Automail–"

But I wasn't Brother. And he wasn't that woman's son. I looked calmly at Al's forehead, down the gun barrel. Then I left him there, not trembling a bit, except for his eyes.

* * *

"Thought you'd finally moved on."

"Hey! It's not like my time's so precious."

I bounced carefully in Granny's armchair, watching her chew through her small meal. She washed up herself, though it took some time, and she had to mend a plate. I hung around, she sat in her chair, and we talked about nothing in particular till evening, when she went stiff all down one side, and stopped talking.

I shouted in her face, and shook her–after some time she loosened enough to tell me to stop.

"…ain't so bad…yet. If it only let up–"

"Can't anyone do anything?"

"Not unless they make nerves out of wire these days." Her voice was as quiet as nothing.

"I'm gonna find your kid–"

"No–"

"–and drag him here by his balls. He can see you–"

"No. Couldn't face him." I bent to her mouth, "The brilliant Alchemist, who was going to change the world–dying like this, in this shit town. And I did such a terrible thing with alchemy..."

"What did you do?"

"Franz; my son. I made him not exist. When he spoke, I cursed him. For knowledge, I'd have thrown him from off cliff."

I went cold inside, a different cold from what was always there. If there were feelings, they weren't any I could feel. She'd driven her away, she deserved everything that was happening to her, but I asked if she'd be alright, and dreaded the answer.

"I'll be alive–maybe for months, like this. Sonny…could you get me the bottle under the sink?"

I got it. She tried to drink it couldn't, and asked me to give it to her. I asked what it was, and she told me.

No. NO, NO, NO!"

"I've lived my own way too long...to die paralysed in my own shit. This is the only repayment you can give me now."

"NO! I don't wanna, please, I don't–"

"Sonny…you'll do what you're told."

* * *

When I walked out, Al was stood in the middle of the square. I waited for the deluge of metal to come down, tear me apart or drag me home.

"Hey, Wrath. I fixed your bike."

"Push it over. No! _Push it_. Don't come closer."

"Something happened?" Al squinted into the dark as he pushed the bike, "I guess…I was pretty rude yesterday–I'm sorry. Are we still friends?"

I needed to run from Alphonse. He had my life, his words made somebody else of me–and he just looked so hurt.

"I'm going to North city. We might meet again." I jumped onto the bike, and pedalled away, out of that place without stopping.

I'd never stepped out of the shadows. So Al didn't see that it was back; the burn I'd got on arm and face when Sloth-Mummy died.

and never wake up from the nightmare."


	6. Reason to be

Sinking into the Gate, as the warmth fell away. In Risenbool, I realised that Sloth was gone. Winry came with her tape measure and busy voice–talking about Automail, to reach for what I could never regain. I howled, bit clung to the wall and never felt the wrench. Winry eventually just went about the house and left me in a corner.

Eventually, Al sat beside me, staring curiously.

"You're a Homunculus, aren't you? So you haven't a Mum or a Dad–like me."

"Had a Mummy. Your Brother _killed_ her."

"Ed _killed_…? He could…really forget to think sometimes. I'm sorry."

That ignorant bastard who had both my lives. Who'd begged Ed to spare Sloth's life...

"Why should I _care_? Everyone _sorry_; Mummy still DEAD!"

Al nodded bitterly. "It's wrong, not having a mother. I…I'm sorry I haven't something to say. Can't do a thing right, without Brother."

"I don't know where he is. He just left…and he loved you. Alone, I can't imagine anything else, but being _loved_…I don't know why he went away."

"Just like mother. She went away, without even _looking_ at us–"

"Liar! She…died without looked at me.

Our look held total incomprehension and understanding. Al's eyes were wet.

"What're you crying for, Elric? You lost your memories–I'd give my other limbs to do that."

"I still know they're gone. And not how to make things right."

"You tried bringing back your Mummy–now Ed's gone too. If you can't bring him back–how you gonna live?"

"I just…hope. Everything has to be for the best."

That evening, I asked Rose why she'd never told Al about Sloth, or how I was born, or how he'd died for Ed.

"Two aren't mine to tell. And…he'd feel he had to give up his life again; just couldn't bear it." I glare, but grudgingly relaxed as she washed my burns. "Al _will_ get better. Everyone does, with time."

She was full of love and pain, like Izumi Curtis. I hated her, but she was right, and my burns went away.

* * *

"…just isn't good enough, Fullmetal Alchemist. If I may still call you that."

I could smell a plush armchair through the keyhole. Me and Al heard a second, younger voice;

"I gave you formulas that work. Just what isn't good enough, hmmm?"

"Our patience has limits. Practical help–"

"Help with those messes you call–"

"Do sit down. This is not some saloon, but a _University_. And without discoveries of some kind it is destined to flounder, like our wonderful democratic government, and the whole idea of giving money away to the undeserving. Think of future generations. Think very carefully about your charming little brother…for example."

At that point, we burst the door open. I immediately hopped onto the sofa, and started bouncing, as Al faced the two men at the desk, balling his fists.

"Say that again about his brother." The tweed-jacketed man with a thin white beard smiled pleasantly, moving his hands from his pockets.

"Al, we could do the whole 'what is the real purpose of your research' thing," I butted in, "Or just beat his head through his feet."

"Yes!" Al rallied himself, "Or we could ask to see those papers you were discussing–"

"Who the hell are you guys?" Interrupted the blonde man on our side of the desk, "And where did you get Ed's coat–I mean my coat–"

Alphonse kicked Blondie clean over the desk. Someone appeared outside, and shouted a bit before I hit their stomach. I was turning to Al when a panel opened beside me, and there were eyes in the dark. I shot back to the other wall, screaming, drawing my gun–Al shut off the panel with alchemy. There was a noise behind it like insects. Then Tweedy blew the wall away, and I knocked two of them back before one reached my face.

A stone pillar smashed it away. My Automail smashed a head on a cabinet; my flesh arm pulled a drawer from it, and swung.

I looked for Al. Most of the oak panelling had been transmuted into a protective cage, with monkey-like beasts leaping over it and tearing. I glanced past him to where Tweedy was pinning Blondie down, hands smoking. I threw a beast down and stamped, seized my fallen revolver, shot out the window above them. Broke his concentration alright.

One was gnawing at my spine again. I gazed up at the thing; too many joints, leg-barbs, a head and tail like no animal. Eyes I knew… then a stone arc knocked it away. Last one. Al came over, looking a bit sick, and turned my Automail into a sword. Without speaking, I finished off the beast-things he'd pinned. I saw now that there had just been six.

"You never killed _anything_?"

He gave me a nervous glance. "You…were _fast_–I hadn't any time for alchemy before they…how did they get these Chimeras so similar…?"

"Wait, then how…?" I looked from the wooden cage to Blondie, who'd knocked Tweedy out with a letter-rack, and was moving unsteadily towards the drinks cabinet.

"Reckon I've made up for impersonating your brother again, Alphonse–he's gotta be happy you got your body back. You remember me? Russell Tringham?"

–0–

"I guess those guys wanted more help from you with those bitey things, yeah?"

Alphonse had met Russell's younger brother; told them about Ed, with his eyes over their shoulder and smiling to much. He was trailing off to Dublith, alone with what memories he had. Me, Russell and the little brother, who seemed pretty nervous around me, were in a roadside tavern two days out of North City, having left with haste to save the police the trouble of questioning us. Russell gazed evenly back at my grin.

"They called them Dybbuks. I was receiving funds in exchange for titbits of information on an entirely separate subject."

"Ooo, like the Red stones? Always been interested…"

"In things made from human lives?"

"Can't help the way we are, Fletch."

"As we can't help it that our father's work was never finished. But we choose to work for that, ourselves."

"Huh?"

"Well, why do you exist? Your kind must need a pretty strong reason." A silence you could shave with, "How long can you go without Red Stones?"

"Not a clue."

"How much do you know about them?"

"Brother!"

So I tagged along with the Tringham brothers for a few months. Mainly I read; philosophy, action comics–religious stuff, for a laugh. Newspapers–one soldier got killed by a mob in Ishbal. After Al finally went our there, the Military Police received information that let them pin the other deaths on 'An unknown rogue Alchemist', so that crisis died down. I thought about those Dybbuks eating down to the bone–cleaner than any Chimera, like Al said–but not so much.

Occasionally, things got exciting. I quickly noticed that Russell was ready to give his life for Fletcher without a thought–he was his brother–but, strangely enough, _Fletcher absolutely hated the idea._ Humans write whole books glorifying personal sacrifice, but when someone says they're ready to die for them, they won't hear another word. That's gotta be frustrating.

I found out as well how Russell could Transmute without a circle;

"Must've been just after Dad died. Glad Fletch wasn't there when that drunk ran me down," He raised his fringe, revealing a piece seemingly chopped from his skull. "He was beside me four days. No body else. Occasionally…I saw him while I was under; in the Gate." He suddenly brightened; "Were you hoping I had one of your own kind, huh? A dead little sister to educate you on emotion and anatomy?"

"Dunno. The worst stuff that's been done to me, Homunculi and their makers did it. But only a Homunculus ever called me a Good Boy."

"Would you object if I call that Homunculus a bloody liar?"

"_Wrath_! _He_ means it as a compliment." Fletcher wearily interjected from the sink, where he was doing our washing.

" 'Good' is pretty outdated," Nash gently moved my hands off his throat, "Everyone does as they feel they must."

I'd always known that. But I wanted to be good somehow; for some pure person to say before I died that all the pain was for a reason. Fletch was glaring at me so hard I couldn't talk about it. He didn't need to remind me with words about the watchman last week, the one I'd thrown off a wharf, pushed under the water with my foot. I still couldn't remember that a choice had passed me by.

I missed Al–what he had to do, he really understood.

–0–

I forget why we ended up in Pendleton during the Western incursions (Lots of squabbling city-states with primitive Alchemy and grudges with Armestris. Had some people worried; I certainly thought twice about some of the scars on the town garrison. _Familiar_…). On my turn to go shopping, I realised how many soldiers were stationed and moving through. Took a chance, and asked the first quartermaster I saw whether she was stationed there.

"The kid with the hair from Ishbal! Cumere…" I buried my face in Private Marisa's bosom, smiling a little sadly. The Woman, Sloth, poor Granny, and her–but you need some kind of Mummy, it's such a hard world.

"Tell me what you've been doing all this time?"

"Going here and there, across the earth. Looks like you've been finding out what they pay you for."

"See it in my eyes, or smell it in my armpits? Actually, I've been finding out why people join." She grinned; happily, but also a little sadly. She looked more alert than I remembered from Ishbal, and the top of her right ear was gone.

"You must know a lot of people who've died."

"Some people die; you gotta live with it. Even in Ishbal, I reckon I knew the last man to die in that shithole. You remember Phil? It was just after the second round of killings–hey, kid? Not so tough?

The blindfold guy. I half wished I'd never asked after Marisa, and didn't know what I knew, even though he wasn't really dead because of me.

You feel it every time.

–0–

"Is it better to know, if knowing hurts?" Nash grinned, "You're asking a Scientist, remember? If it wasn't better, human beings should never have left the jungle. You may ask why–but monkeys _can't_."

"I guess…but we make ourselves so miserable, and torture everyone else. If we understand things, but there's no reason for it…turn me into a tree, then burn it."

"Tch, tch, life and soul of the party. Of course, in the Letonian Creation myth–"

"_Your _Creation poohead. No bitch ever _told_ me what tasty apples do to a poor snake."

We carried on playing cards. Fletch got rid of his hand first, and went about tidying our lodgings. I judged the moment ripe;

"I met someone I knew in town. Seems that last week a couple of our lot got stuck in the disputed territory–some hills we've never held long enough to survey. They found these ruins, and the Military's going crazy planning an expedition, as soon as this round of fighting dies down. My friend said States Alchemists have been round to talk to the survivor."

"You said you'd never been here before."

"Guess my friend lives a bit like us."

"There's always been rumours about an abandoned Alchemical centre, back from when Creta was a world power. Probably there's valuable minerals as well! We could find out about the planned expedition…"

"Uh-uh." Nash threw his cards in the firegrate, "This friend of yours in the military? Ear to the ground?" I nodded, "The next day we hear the areas' clear of patrols, we walk straight over, can't be over 15 km, do a quick excavation."

"You won't. You'll be rooting around for a _week_, brother." Nash laughed at his brother's severity.

"That's why I need you two to drag me back. We just need to get there first, get an idea of the place and then they'll _have_ to put us on the real expedition in six months time…"

Fletcher's caved in to Nash's enthusiasm, and that was it. They laughed and joked all day. Even if they never got closer to their goal by an inch; not that I cared if they made a single Red Stone.


	7. Death

"Well? How goes?"

I sipped my milk, "Alright."

"Wet yourself with excitement much?" Private Marisa dodged a movement of my hand, "Pfft; I can see just fine this is Fuhersday eve for you, tough guy. Sneaking onto land claimed by the world's most powerful armies–ain't it the dream?"

My mouth released a smile; "Alright. And is that going to be this week?"

"Wrath…the armies are heading right up north, but–people been asking after you. Might've been alchemists–"

I started listening to my own thoughts.

The Tringhams–humans I'd travelled with for months, waiting now for me to do something I could. This loud, smiling woman, who might've understood if I told her _almost_ everything…It felt strange. I can tell you, happiness neverfeels strange, never compromises an inch. Once, I was a kid that knew nothing else.

"I'll ask Russell if he knows them."

"Yeah, and you buy those damn clothes I showed you. Spend a night on the moors in those shorts…how many times they got you raped round this town anyway?" I spurted milk on the table.

"Just you try…"

"He laughs…Ain't it easy, stupid? Wait for next week; I'll have more news." She hugged me to her stomach, and moved out, whistling.

I bought an army issue vest, greatcoat, and gloves at the first shop I came to. Then I went straight back to our room. Russell met me in the hall, desperate as ever, and I forced a smile up like half-digested food.

"She said we'll never get a better chance than tomorrow."

–0–

Armestis and Creta have a wide border. As far South of Pendleton as we crossed the frontier, a few watchtowers and bunkers, doze among the wildflowers. Russell used alchemy to drive one gigantic tree root under it all and hollowed the root. Since those things in North city with barbs and eyes, I hadn't liked the dark so much, and I crawled through pretty fast.

We came out near the old front line; webs of trenches drowned by the earth. Still nearly barren of grass, as if two sorts of time were working. We slopped through the muck, and little streams, still taking care of being spotted by binoculars.

Russell didn't exactly look happy; just resolute, and scoured of all his sadness. Made Fletch happy to see it; almost as afraid…that's the Game of You that humans who depend on each other play. Don't seem happy without cutting bits off their happiness.

But Fletch took in everything that was there; the glowing domes of cloud, the sheets of moss over the walls, the water-bugs round the rotten duckboards. I watched real hard, both of them.

"Which country are we in?"

"Ask the next guy we pass."

We kept walking.

–0–

In the middle of the hills, full of striped rock crags, a huddle of crumbling stone...actually, I'd seen enough ruins under Central to last an immortal lifetime. I even swung off some crumbling archway; Russell nearly threw a fit.

"Hmph…right period of architecture, at least…"

"Brother, this sheltered moss hasn't been growing for more than two hundred years. This could all have been built then, in a, erm, retro style…"

"Some archaeologists we are…" They grumbled around, and eventually disappeared into a cellar looking for writing or mining tools. There was a mist coming up, and I could see the tips of the forts on the Cretan Line, from the top of the roof.

Alone. Push reset. Natural state of a creature that doesn't carry pieces of a dozen humans wherever he went. My entire soulless being could be caught in a one word name, back when I never conceded an inch to the drives of humans. So what did I have to give up…?

Then the world was white. Reset and Stop. The End.

–0–

I landed on my feet and dashed to the front of the building. A couple of cameoed Cretans were already there, but the big messy hole in my head hadn't closed yet, so I had time to duck back before they fired. Shielded my head, I drew my gun. Another bullet from the sniper who got me first hammered into my Automail, just as a pistol came round the corner. I nicked the arm behind it with a shot, but knew I was wide open like yo momma's legs, a phrase of Private Marisa's I'd never quite sorted out.

The Tringhams would hear the shots–some ambush. But I'd be filled with bullets before they came up…I shifted, and threw the whole strength of my shoulder and legs against the wall beside me. A bullet hit my chest, and another more faintly, but I burned all the Red Stones I could, and went through wall and rotten floor behind it, into hell.

A space bigger than all the surface ruins, full of darkness and eyes like mouths. From five seconds in, I couldn't ever remember much of it, expect in odd moments right after a resurrection that almost pushed me under again. When it was over I had a couple of roots stuck in me, the shoulder and lower-arm pad had been ripped off my arm, and the hand was stuck in a body. I couldn't stop shaking.

"Well, I don't need to wonder _which_ bunch of bastards set this up, just _why, all this…_" Russell slumped down; they mauled him with vicious teeth the Dybuks like the ones in North City. The things with the eyes that I'd seen before, hungering behind me as I crawled out of the Gate for the first time…

I blacked out, and the whole ruins were deserted when I woke up. Staggered round, I clutched at the skies last rays of sunlight, and went after their tracks. I moved like a human who can't do a thing for the organs splitting inside him but run.

I found the Cretan soldiers firing at a boulder ringing with peculiar trees, just above a cleft in the hills made by a shrunken river. I was throwing one of them down it, when something stuck in my coat and blew me away.

–0–

I could only hear the river when I woke up. A breeze was running over my remaining leg; carefully oblivious, I pulled it back onto the ledge.

I was about five feet above the river. My Automail leg was sticking out of the water; my arm was nowhere in sight. I must've come back from being blown to pieces. What I had to do next, I could not imagine doing.

I lay there, still carefully oblivious. Thought-dead. The grass above the cleft seemed no more desirable than the river below me. The rocks in my back more real now than my own hate and fear.

All thought and hope end in the Gate; the darkness. I was scared, scared to miss a moment of torture. Scared to forget and remember again; wishing I could scream for her, knowing what she did.

Because I don't want to go to bed.

"Mummy…"

Just a whimper.

–0–

Time passed, and a creeper dropped down beside me. More time passed; I grasped the Automail leg, and reopened my stump to push it in. Then I pulled myself up the whole creeper, and seized Fletch's collar with my remaining hand.

"Where were you? Why isn't your brother with you?"

"There was a trap in the cellar that separated us. What was it that hurt him so–"

"Some things that were meant to kill me. Keep talking." The kid started to weep, and I pushed him aside, "Fabulous. You let him draw off the enemy himself, and take a great big poo on what you want. Why did you let him…?"

"He wanted to. And he can definitely survive…" I shoved him into the ground.

"Alphonse would _never_ have let this happen, not to his brother. I wanted to see _two_ humans who'd die for each other, not this mess." I started walking away, and looked back. Fletch had taken my revolver from his pocket. Guess I dropped it in the cellar.

"Feel free. All the Red Stones I've burnt…you might even do the world a favour." He walked away, shoulders stiff. "Hey!"

Time passed, and I ran after him.

–0–

We went a few miles before we ran into the Cretan, all of us so tired we caught each other at thirty feet. Fletch was the first one to move.

In that fucking cellar, I'd fired every shot and never reloaded. He was falling beside me. He had tried to shoot. He never carried an array. He had tried to shoot. _Beside me_.

There was no second shot. Didn't do anything worth talking about to the soldier–it was my hand that sickened. Torn, and crusted like snow with red. I pawed with it at Fletch's greying face.

Brothers! I'm telling you, I didn't know they could die.


	8. Five people you meet in hell

"That you, kid?"

"Still kicking, Marisa. News?"

"Russell Tringham didn't take the coach into town today. He's boarding the place up, but there's surely something dead in there. Look, you said don't approach him, but his _look_–can't you tell me what he's gone and done? He's a spy, then we gotta tell–"

"I'm not throwing him to the authorities, Marisa. I'll explain the situation when I get to…you're in Smilton? Right, we'll sort this out, and you can enjoy the rest of your leave."

"Wrath…really dunno why I'm doing this. To see what you're about, I guess. Stay out of trouble, you hear?"

"Yes Ma'am."

I walked out of the phone booth, knowing for certain that I was messed up.

–0–

In the two months after Fletcher's death, I sorted stuff out.

I started by cycling to North city, and knocking in the doors–occasionally heads–of the alchemists who'd worked on the Dyybuks there. They talked. I rang round acquaintances of Russell's, to make sure he was doing what I'd thought he would. Then I headed back to Dublith, slowly–missing arms throw your centre of gravity off pretty bad for cycling.

The house shed orange light; my heart quickened as I realised the date was correct. I peeked over the garden wall. Standing in the light were Al, Winry, two men from the butcher's shop, some other kids, and Her.

"One. Two. Three! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AL!"

He squealed as Winry pecked his cheek; I felt my eyes get wide.

"I still think we should've had pork crackling on the cake…"

"Cheer up, Mr Mason–if you make one like that, I'd eat it!"

Laughter.

I held her eyes for a second; really looked. Eyes creased with smiles, the bitch–but eyes that had looked at me with love in another lifetime.

Al kept lapping up everything they gave. I wished he'd forget his table-manners and shovel that food in like he truly had a need. One time, Winry asked if he was quite happy.

"Really happy…just wondering what I did for my last birthday."

Winry smiled evenly. The lull in conversation through the room was not untouched by regret. The woman coughed blood and had to go to bed; Al was firmly prevented from following her up.

"Well…when brother comes back, I can tell him about this birthday!" Lukewarm cheers. I hate lukewarm.

–0–

The first person I killed was Envy. He came back, of course.

The Red Stones give us life. What I wanted was a bed and my Mummy, but that bastard pushed them down me, with the dizzying heat in my body, and I knew.

One life. Heat, but no warmth, desire, but no love, nothing, after the end. And the right to the world called innocence would never come back. Right then, I knew that something was the matter with me.

So I put a spike through Envy's chest–he was grinning, all the time. Everything I've done since then has been the only choice I've seen. And I know I've hurt everybody, just by trying to act like a human, a kid that trusts the world.

Her eyes look like _she_ thinks that way; she always tries to hide how much she hates me.

Mummies who love their children give them what they need. I can't live, because Mummies know what's best for their kids too, and when the stones burnt through me I remembered. _She_ saw me, and gave me back to the Gate.

And now she won't be a Mummy to me. She just won't fucking break my neck, like I deserve.

–0–

Past midnight, Al crept out to look at stars or something. I put myself between him and the house, and coughed.

"Wrath! Sorry about the dressing gown–what happened to your arm–?"

"Don't worry; I'm looking at the tabby-striped pyjamas."

"Oh…anyway, couldn't you come to the party? I'd have…it was great, everyone was happy…?" I stared away from his eyes. "Wrath…Sensei, won't tell me, but I know from her eyes you two used to be close."

"Can't say I–"

"_Excuse me._" Al stepped forward, "I'm her student; I think you might be angry with me for that. But I can't make a special bond with her, when my most special bond is gone. I'm bringing brother back, whatever I have to give."

"Yeah. You're a good boy." He smiled like Alphonse Elric.

"Someone has to be, with you around."

"I shouldn't be around…and you're different since Ed left…" The smile vanished.

"I can't _remember_ what I was like then, what brother was like–"

He stopped as I raised my head, grinning as if the idea filling my head had just arrived.

–0–

I told him what I knew. Everything.

How I was made.

("If you hadn't ate the Stones–"

("They just made me realise I had to die. Then you tried to rip me apart–knew right then you were solid.")

Everything the homunculi had done.

His transformation and the fight in Liore.

Sloth. How he brought his Mummy back and fought his brother for her life.

When I told him about Ed's 'death', he almost lost his head. I had to support his body one-handed and whisper the rest in his ear; Ed had come back with four limbs and then he had vanished. Al gulped at me–his tears smelt harsher than any I'd ever known.

"I know that no one told all that." I broke the silence, "But _why not_? I can't get over how you accepted not knowing."

"D, d, do you think Brother's alive?"

"You gave your life for your brother. He must've _thrown_ himself into the Gate to bring you back. Isn't that what humans are meant to live for ?"

His fist arced into my cheek. I thought of Envy's grin as he let me kill him, and put my knee in his gut.

Close as we were, my strength was the clincher, but Al was glaring rage and digging into every nerve he could reach. And a cold peace was moving through me; slowly I pushed his hand off my mouth and pinned him down.

"They didn't tell me, because they're terrified I'd do it again!" Al shrilled, "You don't understand anything! Winry, Rose and Sensei, they want me to be with them and make happiness, _that's_ why people live, but I won't, they don't understand what I want. I'll bring Brother back and he'll live for both of us…"

"So you have trouble with living too."

"Miss Rose… talks about redemption sometimes. Accepting what I did, not striving to make it right. She has some lovely ideas...but my brother who died for me is gone. I can't ever let go."

I let him get up. "Yeah; happy birthday, Al. You're going to be–?"

"I'll be fine. Wrath, what are you going to do?"

"Just trying to find Russell again, and discuss some things. Also, I, hmm, hoped you could persuade Winry–"

"You twit. Just head to Risenbool and ask her for a new arm."

I watched him walk off in the direction of the river. I couldn't find the reason I needed, to call him.

–0–

Before my final stop, I spent a day in Central, ransacking the military archives. I got a break, and cycled directly to a mid-sized Southern town. I found him standing near the cemetery.

"Franz Harman?"

"We met?"

"Not really." I crouched down and studied patterns of lichen; he scratched the place his Automail hand joined his oak-coloured wrist. "I see you're an alchemist."

"Ought to hate it, honestly. Really, I do, but…blood will out."

"Visiting anyone?"

"Ex-wife." I had to keep remembering he was almost forty, as well as not to tear his throat out yet.

"Oh. Was that because you were, what, _neglected_ as a child? No money left over for playschool…?" I turned my head, looked down the gun he'd made from his fist.

"Granny…your mother died three months ago," he clapped the gun to my head to stop the barrel shaking, "Whatever she did to you, go and see her."

Presently, he turned away.

"Right, right. You're aware I was in the Military up till Ishbal? I've been to enough funerals for people I didn't know…"

I sat among the gravestones and thought for hours on the Mummy I didn't give a shit about. If she died, I'd force Al to bring her back, so I could keep on not giving one.

–0–

After the first spanner attack, Winry was alright. But she kept badgering me to say what was up; said she knew the signs from Ed.

"Alright. Somebody behind the Dyybuks killed Fletcher, Russell's younger brother. Tried to restart the Ishbal war before that. Remember all those supposed tries to bump off Col Mustang? He was with Lt Hawkeye every time, and they tried to kill _her_ off twice while the colonel was still around to hear about it. Read the paper last week?"

"Prizes at the cow show–"

"Major Armstrong's mother died. Brick dropped off a roof; I never thought idiots could be so dangerous."

"Who–?"

"I really don't know. Al's coming here in two days. I don't ring, he doesn't put a foot out the door." I punched air with my new arm, "No release catch this time?"

"If you care about someone…it doesn't always mean doing what you think best. I ought to have learnt that." She turned back to her workbench, then called as I reached the door. "Wrath? Who's that Marisa woman you've been calling the past three weeks?"

I willed a blush, deliberately crossed a leg behind the other.

"Wrath! You haven't…? On second thoughts, I'm not a bit interested if you've got a girlfriend."

I looked back at her moving golden head. That was it then. Just the memory of her touch, and knowing I'd never get closer to her than I was.


	9. Mother's eyes

_Note: This chapter actually has plot. Read chpt 4 for Marisa, chpt 5 for Granny, chpt 7 for the death of Fletcher, chpt 3 and 8 for Granny's son, Franz. Al will reappear before the end, but not the way you expect.

* * *

_

"Hey, Marisa. What d'ya call a thousand Alchemists, at the bottom of the ocean?"

Shotgun over her comfortable knees, she peered through the flood of rain. "Can't see 'em."

A light appeared at a window over the road. Both of us ducked back into our shelter of a deserted vegetable stall.

"You ain't forgot nothing, kid...? Like telling me sometime _before_ we bust your idiot friend, what exactly we're busting?"

"A certain illegal Alchemical–"

"Human transmutation?"

"Lucky guess."

"Well, you a good friend not to just turn him in."

"Ehh...not _that_ much of a friend. " She turned to me; I actually fidgeted, "Story time?

"One day, a stupidly powerful alchemist decided to make herself live longer, by killing as many people as it took. This Alchemist had students but most of them were just too _nice_, or whatever, to do everything she wanted done.

"Solution. One human corpse, plus one genius deathwishing Alchemist. Makes one unkillable monster. Our Alchemist picked up monsters here and there, made quite a gang–all gone now, but not so long ago.

Someone's still around who thinks that Alchemist had a good thing going. They've been prodding at old wars, and had Fletch Tringham killed. We'll know who when they arrive to pick up Fletch the Homunculus..."

"This is a trap? Bait?"

"That's the plan! Just don't charge in, I need you for eyes–"

"True enough."

It was a whisper, a foot behind us. The vines were all over me before I could twitch.

–0–

"Russell Tringham, I'm arresting you, on suspicion–" He brought up clasped hands, "...just don't you dare hurt him."

I could strain my head round, and see his eyes. Gates to his soul, like mine had never been, or burned.

"Wrath. How did my brother die?"

"Bastards shot him. If I didn't get them, you did–"

"Risks of mucking around on the Cretan border; true?"

"Your brother–" Marisa finally caught up, "Shit, the kid told about that stunt in Creta; your brother went with him, and died–oh, hell. I told you it wasn't safe yet–"

"Marisa, don't–"

"_You_ told _Wrath_ it wasn't safe, Private? And he told Fletcher that it was."

"Well, if the kid told you that, he's just an idiot–"

"Look at him."

Marisa looked at me; I couldn't look at her. There was nothing I wouldn't have done anything, but it was her eyes that weighed my face with awareness of sin.

"I've thought about you, these last two months. Why you would've completely ignored a warning about suspicious activity in Creta that killed my brother. Maybe you'll give a reason–" He stepped closer, hands spread taunt, "But you just couldn't live with humans, right? Wanted a Homunculus little brother, you monstrous–?"

"Never wanted Fletch to die–" A root punched through my chest. Marisa watched me cough blood, unnaturally still. "The...shit, the Cretans were using those Duyybuk things; someone was backing them, who was killing anyone some Alchemist would want to bring back. We were going to walk through the trap, draw them out–we can still–" A root went through my other lung, healing much too slowly.

"You want us to be bait for you again–"

"Ed would have done it." Russell broke my nose with his hand, and I hardly paused, "Ed and Al Elric walked into worse without giving a fuck–best ever, I was insane to try and hurt them. I don't know why two humans are strong as them; two brothers.

"I had to see it again, both of you fighting together, but all of it went wrong! He was your brother, he was supposed to live, like Ed and Al did, every single time!"

"Why?"

"I had to understand. Why they died, for each other. What humans have, and I don't." Something was leaking from deeper inside me than blood or Stones; the Flamel Array appeared under my feet. I might just have burst the vines and rushed him–but Marisa's gun was on me. "I've messed up again, haven't I?"

"You're a fool kid. You used these boys like a demon. You shouldn't be, just shouldn't be."

Her eyes were pain, and she wouldn't kill me. They were my pain, as I vomited my life and howled in the darkness.

–0–

"Mama..."

"I'm here, child. You're safe, love, you're home.

"Boys always come home in the end. They see how silly they've been, and how much they'd give to make it right."

Her boy? Oh yes, the alchemist with the Automail hand. I could see him dimly in a corner of the room, only his face seemed to be masked. _She_ leant over me, dark face creased with exultation.

"Granny. I told him your son you were dead. I killed you–"

"I asked you, remember? Nothing to forgive." With the last strength in my drained body, I hugged her.

"There, now. Blind half-dead old ladies don't have any more of a human existence than foolish old Dante in her rotten shell. Of course, she taught me Alchemy in the first place; but she could never give it up, never surrender control. She didn't have a brave, devoted son to give her eternal life and all the red stones we'll ever need."

"You told me to tell your son you were dead. You, how did you–"

"Children always forget it, the old were not always. All those people I've known in my life, the sense to save some money, a few letters...

"Don't worry about the future child; I'll look after you, like I did back then, teach you how to live. We can meet your brother soon, and give you both lots of stones to get strong..." Her son silently left the room, "...aren't you happy?"

Central, Ishbal, North City, Creta. It had been Granny, the forgotten alchemist in the little village, finding me, drawing me to this. I could bury myself in something like love, do the evil she told me, not the evil in my heart–she wasn't like Dante, she understood.

"They took my Stones, Granny, all of them. I don't want to die, never, never..." I buried my face in her shoulder.

"Don't be afraid–" She hissed like a lizard. I didn't look at her face, just the shining spike coming out of her back, transmuted from my own Automail arm.

–0–

"Always wanted to do that." Light flashed around us, as I merged my hand in her belly, my head in her shoulder, felt the life in her heart like a foetus seeking the light, and gulped the sweetest mouthful as my head and arm were cut neatly away.

I fell back, grinning as my head regrew. Granny watched, a thin blade held before her sightless eyes.

"You could do alchemy when your arm and leg were human. Now?"

"You'd laugh if I told you how. Tell me how you like life as a Homunculus, if you call it _life_–"

"Why certainly. I will never die. I think and feel as I did, and left instructions for my boy to replace every memory I cared to keep. "

"But something's missing. You can't ever be friends with humans like they can..."

"I relate to other beings as I always have. I value the ones I love, and have no use for the ones I do not. I don't even imagine it necessary to rename myself...Pride, wasn't it?"

Her eyes opened. The serpent tattoo was in one pupil, then the other. A single bloated Ulitimate eye gazing from both her sockets.

Six foot of flexible stone came straight at her, on the end of my arm. Granny stopped it one handed; I shed it before she pulled, and kicked up a spike of rock at her heart.

She moved. Her face was an inch from mine, her sword sliding over my Automail to rest in the shoulder joint. She twisted.

"Naughty–so wilful. After all I've done for him."

"Bitch, bitch–"

"Can't you see, love–your Granny's only thinking of what's best for you?"

"I've always known it for myself, actually." I dropped to my knees, with a grin of death, "Love means finding a special person, and trapping them in pain, to show that they're yours. It's all I've ever seen, all I've ever done. I'm gonna kill you in a minute, and I'll spend the rest of my time leading humans into torment and death; amazing what they'll do once you take one bullet for them. Maybe if I do it enough, I'll understand what being a human means!"

I grinned over her shoulder, at the woman stood the doorway. She slowly raised her gun, and blew out Granny's chest.

Instantly, I had swatted the Homunculus through the wall, and burst out after her, screaming at Marisa to run. Dashing through the pouring rain, in a street facing onto a canal, I drove my blade through her again; then she was healed, and rising calmly.

I pulled a wall from the ground with my foot; Granny was behind it and my leg was gone like chopped celery. I leapt back on my automail, strained out a mass of fluid stone above us. I shot tendrils all round her; I couldn't even catch her clothes–that eye saw through my wildest frenzy. It might as well have controlled me. I was scared.

Granny shifted behind a fist of stone, quite incidentally blocking another shotgun blast, and threw her blade. Before it even stuck Marisa to the wall, her hand was on my throat.

"The Tringham boy. Where?" Marisa spat, "He's been through a lot," I felt my vertebrae scrape out of true, "But the poor boy has limits–"

"Two streets south, white door."

"Good girl." She was holding the sword again, lifting Marisa's body on it, flicking her into the river in a tumble of flopping limbs and blood. Then she was gone, without a glance at me. I staggered up, and dived into the river.

With my strength, I can stay afloat for seconds in Automail–but not swim. Never in a current stronger than any monster. I struck two rocks, flailed wildly about, gripped her, and sank down, empty as if I'd vomited up my head.

A flash–my legs had merged with the riverbed, we were rising above the water. I trembled and held Marisa. She was too light.

"Why? I could've died–why'd you ever come looking for me? I, I'm..."

"Monster. I hate you, but..." She smiled tightly. Reached for my mouth; I felt a smear of blood there, wiped it.

"...but what?" She was dead when I looked back at her.

"WHAT! Stupid, hate you, hated me, why d'you come back and die? Die for ones you love, hurt the ones you hate, this fucking don't make sense...you hurt me like this? You died for me, Marisa, no–"

Her eyes were shut–she had the dark eyes that had brought me life and killed me, all my fourteen years. Eyes like Mama. Ultimate torment, my ultimate, empty, hope.


	10. The wrong destination

I walked away from her body, to the house with the white door where Nash had been. I guessed it was the one with the front blown off, and that familiar circle glaring at the stars. I felt eyes in the street behind me.

If Nash wasn't dead, he and Granny would be after me. Two possible places they would look first...I thought, in moments before I fell into the red. The Dyybuks lashed their tails, tensing to spring as they glared with those violet eyes like mine. Unless I missed my guess, the spirits in the Gate could be given artificial bodies. Smarter than Chimeras, cheap, hungry. They'd been in the dark long enough to forget light and darkness both; all they gained from a body in the world was insanity. And the chance to eat everyone in this town before they dropped.

They leapt. I knew damn well I was going to enjoy what was coming. It turned into a burning smudge that ended three days later, looking at Fritz over a sun-lit Dublith street.

–0–

"We can work this out, Wrath." His voice was grating, probably artificial. The wind blew against his mask, showing up the absence of nose, or cheeks. "I don't want my mother hurt any more. You don't–"

"She lives two streets away, number 6.It's a pity you're too weak to hurt her in a million years."

"Why should I want to kill your mother? Not to discourage your concern–"

"Not. My. Mama–idiot. Just like the thing you transmuted–nothing but monsters with a Mama's face." Fritz reached out a metal hand–I tensed, but it was just more small talk.

"I gave her my face. My last hand. She remembers every thing I did; and she forgives me. You can chase forgiveness, run to every place the earth meets hell, until your soul is pain. Or walk three blocks, speak two words–and let my mother show you what family means. Perfection."

"Hand in hand across the world, with a trail of corpses?"

"Monsters live that way. But it's no good for us to be alone–we end up making mistakes, don't you remember?"

"I made mistakes. But you're a human, and you choose _this_..."

Within seconds, we went for our guns. I was faster, but a huge iron shield had spun from his wrists, throwing off the bullets from my transmuted automail. The gun from his own hands fired, and every window on the street blew out.

I fell into an alley, gasping as I regrew a burst lung. After my last fight, I guessed two more lives was all I had–puffs of brick and lead came through the wall. I scrambled up through them, dived flat from the roof, and rolled around him–guns were growing from the side of his shield now; big ones and more growing.

I threw up a wall I guessed he would blast through in no time, and thought. He had to have a Red Stone, and looked like he was learning its potential as applied to transmuting weapons from the earth too big and rapid firing to be naturally possible–the guy ought to be stone deaf if this was his normal tatic. I grinned, and thrust my hand into the earth, as fire screamed above me.

Within a few moments, the earth convulsed under the ordnance battery hard enough to throw iron into the air. Fritz realised that for the second he was out of touch the earth he could transmute nothing; I saw because I was directly above his head that second.

I stopped him moving, then I kicked him around a bit to loosen up, but thought of some uses for him alive just in time. He spat blood, and whistled–Dyyubuks poured onto the street. I made a whip of stone from the arm, and spattered them, as I hauled Fritz down the street. With a real monster waiting for me to slay her at last, I had no more time for the darkness in the Gate.

–0–

Granny was quite still, inexhaustible as dark and lonely tree. The ground between her and Nash was a bleak garden of sharpened roots covering walls and fists of stone. As I ran, I sent a streetful of broken window frames at her as bullets, a mere second before Nash lifted himself on severed tendons to cover the ground with flowers disgorging poison gas.

Her eyes flicked between us; she choked, jerked in blood-sprays, I threw my fist at her, and her sword was in Nash's gut–my arm and my head were gone seconds ago. When I regrew eyes, she was standing between me and her son's body.

"So sorry I couldn't protect you..."

"You've made enough apologies, kid. Just you rest there. Wrath...if you'd rather destroy yourself than be good, I'll indulge you this once–"

"Oh, shut up." I panted, "I found your weakness already."

"The Ultimate eye lets perfectly analyze only an attack I have observed? So strikes in perfect unison could conceivably touch me? Was _that _what that was supposed to be?"

"Yeah." My eyes hunted from Tringham's broken body to the stone fists; definitely not his style. Al, normally resident in Dublith, was miles away guarding Winry from any insane plan Granny might throw up. That left one candidate for the second combatant.

"Little Izumi Curtis? With her trousers and karate and be-thou-for-the-people...she started vomiting her stomach up, and had to retire. A word from you would bring her back, if you really wanted to see her dead..."

"After all of this...all the people I've tried to love, I don't particularly want her to live, or die. But maybe I want to rip you apart myself."

"My, my, my. Thirteen years, and you're quite prepared to die...when after all my time, I've just never understood a reason I oughta. My son'll keep us both alive forever, if he makes the stone. And you...what made it all worthwhile, sonny?"

"This." I tore my gaze from the shining blade to her eyes, and made ready to push everything of my life and heart into the fire.

"Excuse me? Do you need some help there?"

The armour, his armour, stood behind me. He glowed, just like the time he died for Edward, as the sun went down at his back.

"Al! I need some help, but how the ...?"

"Soul transfer? I don't think it matters how far away–"

"Very good; if you'd left Winry alone for the sake of a fight, I'd have had to break your head."

"Um, if that was supposed to sound caring, it needs some work..."

"You were just supposed to be the responsible one."

"I' d say so. I'm here because I have to be responsible for _you_."

I smiled at Granny like a wolf, and we ran to her. She was waiting, eye on me...I was watching Al, as his slid behind her and the two of us swung in.

It had been months since I'd fought with Al, in the few weeks of my journey we travelled together, but I knew what he did, like a gift placed in my head without learning...weird. She had dodged me, the wrong way. I'd attacked with Nash, but not in unison, and she'd caught us both. With Al, the irreplaceable component was there.

–0–

I backswung my automail at her face; she blocked, but Al had seized her. Pressing at his arms until she shook like the sea–she was strong and he was stronger. She choked as I broke her chicken-thin hand, and shattered her sword by closing my fist.

"Al–the Flamel array, please."

"Um, Wrath, a bit preoccupied here? Can you draw one with Alchemy, please?"

"Ah, yeah. I never learned the shape, or anything, but I bet you can describe it...?"

"While I'm grappling a homunculus? You're joking!"

"Well, can you stay like that forever? What else can we do?"

"...it's only your own fault if you didn't think this out! You're always too impulsive, bro–" Granny chuckled sofly; hissed as I punched deep into her gut.

"You mustn't hurt me–"

"Hurts does it, Granny? I'd scream if it hurts, myself. Let me know what you're feeling, if I can't imagine it. Doesn't it make you so pitiful, martyred and just plain right, to suffer in the cause of doing whatever horror you want–?" I threw a full kick at her head but dented Al's shoulder; he'd shifted his body to cover her. I studied him oddly.

"She's an old lady, Wrath! I know she isn't really, but she really is a mother, and you've really got one."

"Yes, she was a mother, and I felt for her that way, when we met. Turned out just about right. She wanted to run wars to make the Stone, just like Dante. She used me, she killed Marisa, and she made kill you, because being human wasn't good enough for her...ain't it what humans do, killing monsters? Edward did enough of it–hey, I hate her like a mother, so it isn't even tricky." I strolled over to Fritz, and put my foot on his back. "Draw the Flamel array. Or die. She starves to death with her pet alchemist dead, so decide for yourself, because right now you're alone, _alone_–"

"I can't! Stop! I can't hold it; I won't kill her, not like this!"

Even when his face was a piece of metal, I could read what Al felt. It was hurtling from the full depth of eleven years, and rolling over me.

I remembered that face, when Sloth had died, when I and Ed had killed her. He had stood there watching his mother die again, and his hope disappear with mine. For everything he gave, all he wanted was his family; that was his soul. And now I was stood there, torturing a son in front of her mother, as Al held her down. Torturing Al, and I couldn't have done better if I'd seen it.

–0–

"Why are you here?" I finally snapped at Al, "Why haven't you ever killed me?"

"I've never...I don't think I've could ever have felt I should. And I...like you being alive."

"_Why_?" I shut my eyes in pain; and Fritz came up, knocking me away. There was strength in his body, a gun forming from his hand–I threw myself past it, at his chest, using alchemy to pin us together on the floor.

"Monster...she offered you a life. And you hurt her."

"We're monsters, old man. And if you want to keep on living, I really don't care."

His hands came together behind my back, and lightning flashed from my hands–

I came to with a spike through my body, dribbling blood on his fleshless, dying face. I was alive, my blood was coming back, but the wound couldn't close, get it out, I don't know where I'd go, I had to see her, Al was screaming far away, Fritz was touching my foot. My tattoo.

No. No no no, not a mindless beast like Dante had made of Gluttony, nothing, rage-hunger; monstrous to the end...I didn't want it. I didn't want to lose my

* * *

From the subconscious that remained in me forever, I dreamed of it sometimes, afterwards.

The armour was screaming, Granny was screaming; he still didn't let her go. She sucked in, pushed her elbows into his breastplate until Al seemed ready to burst–she was doomed to starve of Red Stones, and her last desire was his obliteration. Al's foot gave under her stamp.

Then the body of Wrath the homunculus stopped roaring, wiped its foam away. It rose from above Fritz's corpse, dissolving all transmutations around them. He looked at Granny with the open and happy smile of a boy who knew love.

"I don't want to do this. But you'd kill me and Wrath, and Sensei, and Winry, and there's nobody else."

"How..."

"I can put my soul into a non-living object. Homunculi aren't human; they can be transmuted like a human body never can. When I had fought with Wrath, just before he went to face you, I got the idea of transferring a piece of my soul to Wrath; it let him perform Alchemy. I thought I could watch over him, and step in if needed." The smile shook like a leaf in wind, "I didn't know I'd _feel_ him."

"Interesting viewing? Fights, cruelties, plots and fights–"

"No. I knew he hurt, I didn't understand this fury that ripped him apart, or his hate...I'm ill beneath them, but it's worth it. I can feel the arm of my brother. The weight he carried." Al smiled at the sky like a tormentor, "I can feel his hope. He wished he could find a way to be better, and your son...was cruel to him. I think that because of Wrath, I can kill you."

"Why not him? Tell me, boy!"

"Our souls are bound." The smile curled up and hid, and Al drew a flamel array then watched as she puked all her stones up through wrinked lips. He made a blade from my Automail, and someone came and stopped him, but the dream went away, as my mind faded back into the darkness and hunger. It should have been an eternity, without even the knowledge that I had journeyed and walked the path to this end.


	11. Into the light

"_So I shall die," said the little mermaid, "and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?"_

"_No," said her grandmother, "unless a man were to love you…"_

–_The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen_

–0–

_Jehovah, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, Or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul within me._

_O Israel, hope in Jehovah, from this time forth and for evermore._

–_Psalm 131_

* * *

I was.

Quiet for a time, like the world in a forest by the sea. Someone put stew near my nose; I gulped it down without waking.

I sat up, one day. Stared at both my hands, wondering what they were for. Metal and flesh, one of them should be warm–I was thinking! Protesting! I was me! I backflipped onto the bed, bounced, sang, and beat the frame with my hands for joy. I saw her, smiling.

–0–

"…You."

"Hello son. How do you feel?"

The arm laid on the sheets was finger thin, whiter than mine, barely clutching her book…one arm. Other side, a stump. I desperately counted–one leg-shape in the sheets. She was a dead thing, warmed by force beyond life or reason.

"Dunno how I feel. You look…"

"Worse than I feel. Honest."

She smiled again, skin almost cracking on her face. I wasn't smiling back, not yet, not now. Her husband came in to put out fresh bowls of meat broth, and change the bag on her arm before he left. We exchanged looks, like passing shades.

"Why am I here?"

"Your intelligence and memories were destroyed with alchemy. I got to you in time…" Her stump twitched, "I had to open the Gate. You got your ouborous tattoo back."

"What do alchemists have to suffer," I gathered my most vicious snarl, "before they learn from their mistakes?" My fingers clawed at my hair, as if plucking out the knowledge of every sin that threw me from her arms was a power I had.

"I can't run from my sin, not with this body. If you're thinking I could've left out any memories you didn't want, then–_don't_. Shouldn't have expected a thank you."

"From a monster? I've held lives–twisted them in my hands until they died or got away."

"You learned from the best."

"Yeah. Maybe causing pain was the only way I knew to make you proud. Maybe I wanted to get so many sins you could never forgive me again. You could've left me a mindless shell, you could throw me back to the dark again, and neither of us would hurt anymore."

"I'm familiar with pain, if it had passed your notice." Our voices were quiet, like nails scraping in bottomless caves.

"Yeah, that's me, right? Hurting you right now, hurting your eyes–I can feel it. I'll never stop hurting you. Why'll you never stop saying I'm your son?"

"Because I chose it."

"Doesn't it matter to you I'm a curse to the world?!"

"Yes, it matters that my only son is a murderous, self-centred whiner. But I care more about certain small, persistent things. Apart from that you helped defeat Dante, and someone nearly as dangerous. Thought I'd tell you."

"It was you that killed Granny, right? Not Al?"

"She left Dante just after I began. I can imagine what she did to you." Old fire was uncovered on her brow.

"What a joke…you broke your body for me. For Ed, yes, for Al, yes, yes, but for me–what for, why, _why_?"

"You'll understand when you're human." I slowly sat up straight on the bed, "The purpose of that ridiculous journey of yours…right?"

"Human? I guess I'm still just a kid. And…I'm sorry. Mama." I vaulted from the bed, and set off quickly towards the door.

"There's one thing more to say." I froze, "It would make all this so light."

"I...I…I'm sorry. Maybe with no Red Stones I can't feel anything so much–but I promise I can't hate you anymore. I'll tell you when I find another answer."

She threw the book she had at my head. I caught it on the way down–thought it was something about swimming chimeras.

"Go, then. Yes, live your own life, you silly little…._hairball_. If you think I can do anything else for you, let me tell you…wait…!" She was killing herself talking.

Sig Curtis was standing in the garden as I went down to the gate in silence; Al and Winry had been sent away long ago. Only Sig was left to see Mama as she died; I couldn't hate him either.

"Would she be happier," My voice was small, "…if she was dead?"

"You want to die yourself?" The giant man grated without looking at me.

"I don't. I should, but if I die the Gate'll take me forever; I won't go there, never, never again."

"Good. Death is no use. Just a life." He shut the cottage door.

–0–

For the last few months, I went out and did nothing. I stole milk straight from the cows and passed by every brawl I saw–I had one life left, after all. I saw real mamas touch real kids and remembered, but the night had been too long for me to ever live in dreams.

I thought about dying. The Gate was always behind me, waiting to eat. That room was with me too, where she was, full of the light that was the death of monsters. I never gave my life for a sinner, and I never went back to her place.

Izumi Curtis died alone; the burden she could not endure, she spared us. I was waiting for the pain in my chest to break me, when Winry called to me under the tree, and led me back to an unchanged world. I hope she'll marry Al soon.

I watched Al in his coma, I saw his face when he woke. He saw me.

"Come on, Wrath! I know you're here for something…"

"Maybe something you shouldn't know about." I sat in the river-side tree, pretending to read the book Mama had thrown at me.

"Then I'd say you're thinking of something stupid again."

"Of course, you haven't ever…?" Al appeared in the tree beside me; we went for each other, and knocked out our breath on the ground. We traded flying kicks and haymakers beside the sunny river. It was a fight, serious as any I've known–neither of us smiled or laughed, we had no need.

"Truce," I finally breathed, "We go somewhere you can do what you're thinking of, but I come too. No questions." There was the old light in him that morning, even as he winced to touch his black eye, "You shouldn't have fought me, if you didn't want that. You sure about bringing your brother back now?"

"Definitely. I can choose how to spend my life. It's part of being human–"

"As opposed to me, a life some human made? It's okay."

"No, I'm sorry. Anyway, I'm glad you saw Sensei once before she passed away, Wrath."

"Mmm. I should say it, she loved you." The light flickered–how could he think of waiting to give up his life until Mama was just gone away? Not lost, never, not with a soul, like hers. Eternal as humanity, and their light that made beauty of death.

"Won't it be strange for you to see brother again? He's so much taller–I don't know what you'll say to each other but you'll have so much time…"

He died for you. You'd follow him anywhere; it's all you ever wanted. You'll forgive me, won't you, and live?

Ed Elric had got older. Al would have to. For me, there was another step…it came sudden and sharp, the second regret of my life. We had been rolling planets, bound at a distance, for a time. His eyes were fixed past every place where I led him, on the end. I looked to him, to see the way.

–0–

I didn't fight Gluttony. Every head torn away was to get back to the circle. Every smash among the ruins had a reason I had made, every numbing fall was time for remembering. Marisa, Nash, Fletch, Lust. Sloth. Winry. Ed. Al. Mama. All the souls in every red stone; even as they blew life through my body, they were bitter. But I took them and ate.

The darkness was howling hungry as my fist hovered. Empty body to empty space–no Mama for the soulless monster. But Lust hadn't known. Marisa hadn't known. Humans didn't know why their love was stronger than their hate, or what use the soul was they treasured more than life. I broke through the stone.

Gluttony, mindless avenger...hope for him? For me? I couldn't move my legs, I was mush, blood and bits of steel. I was choosing how I spent my life.

"Of course…"

Al's quiet voice was screaming. Of course it was true, everything his eyes, his fists and his soul had always told me. Smothered me, smothered Wrath, let me imagine that my blood might be warm to the touch–

"_Hurry!"_

I was Wrath, but I couldn't destroy any more. Broken and raging, kneeling before the choice I left for Al. He wanted his brother back more than he wanted me. But the moment he dropped his gaze, legs as frozen as a sealed memory, the sharp sudden pain like a prisoner kicking his way from my chest blazed higher than the agony of organs popping. Mama, Mama, didn't you want this for your kids? Isn't that why you suffered like this?

Al dashed to me, nothing but longing in his face. He touched my blood-soaked body, and took my life in a mighty blaze.

–0–

I heard that Alchemists know what has a soul or doesn't, because they have a test that tells them. Our stupidity never ends. Maybe I always had a soul; maybe I earned one, or was given it. Maybe this never-seen body is dream; but know with a peaceful heart, my Mama is real. The one that cast me into the gate stood on their other side, in the light of her arms. Keep me safe, and warm, and there's nothing else I can tell.

Yeah.

I love you.

_A/n: Three years? I've only got myself to blame, and stylistic rewrites could keep me busy for another year…but I've loved writing this. Every trouble Wrath got into just wasn't enough; I don't want anything this long again though. Thanks to everyone who reviewed or even waded through this self-indulgent pudding of a fanfic. Godbless, love your mothers, or Wrath's going to come get you!_


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